Record electric consumption during a very hot summer and continued customer growth helped boost El Paso Electric's third-quarter profit to $73.3 million, company officials reported Thursday.

The company's profit increased $13.6 million in the third quarter — up almost 23 percent from the same time in 2017.

The company's profit decreased 2.8 percent in the second quarter to $33.3 million.

Electric consumption hits all-time record

Electric use in the July-September quarter by the company's residential, small commercial, and government customers was the most of any quarter in the company's history, reported Mary Kipp, El Paso Electric chief executive officer.

"Although we reported solid financial results for the quarter, we continue to experience some headwinds due to the completion of some of the generation maintenance work that we started in the second quarter," Kipp told Wall Street analysts during a conference call Thursday.

The company expects maintenance and operation costs for its power plants to decrease in the fourth quarter, she said.

Electric customers grow to 424,444

Electric consumption in the third quarter, which had above-average temperatures, increased 4.3 percent compared to a year ago.

The number of customers also grew by 1.7 percent. The company had 424,444 customers in West Texas and Southern New Mexico at the end of September.

Revenue from retail and wholesale electric sales increased 2.7 percent to $216.7 million in the third quarter — an increase of $5.7 million.

The decrease in the federal corporate income tax, due to federal legislation passed last year, and increased income from stock investments held in the Palo Verde nuclear decommissioning trust funds, of which El Paso Electric is a part, also helped boost the third-quarter profit, company officials reported.

Customers getting fuel charge reduction on bills

Kipp also said that the Public Utility Commission of Texas recently approved, on an interim basis, reducing the company's power plants' fuel charge to customers by 7 percent.

That means an El Paso-area residential customer with average electric consumption will see a 50-cent monthly decrease in the electric bill beginning in November, company officials said. The reduction does not apply to the company's New Mexico customers.

The company passes to customers its natural gas costs for operating its power plants. When those costs decrease, it passes the decrease to customers.

The company's stock, traded under the EE symbol on the New York Stock Exchange, closed Thursday at $57.70 per share, up 65 cents per share. The next day, it closed at $56.97.